The French president has condemned the “erroneous” restrictions placed on the bloc’s former tech commissioner
French President Emmanuel Macron has asked US President Donald Trump to lift the sanctions he imposed on several European officials, including former EU commissioner Thierry Breton and International Criminal Court (ICC) judge Nicolas Guillou.
Breton, a French citizen who oversaw the EU’s tech regulations, was among five Europeans barred from entering the US for leading “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose,” according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Judge Guillou, also a French national, was sanctioned over the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes in Gaza.
In a letter published by La Tribune Dimanche on Sunday and confirmed by the Elysee Palace, Macron argued that the measures were “unjustly imposed” and asked Trump to “reconsider these decisions.”
“The sanctions adopted against Thierry Breton undermine European regulatory autonomy and are based, moreover, on erroneous analyses,” Macron wrote.
“European digital regulation does not, in fact, have any extraterritorial reach and applies without discrimination, on European territory, to all companies concerned,” he added.
The French leader argued that “the sanctions adopted against Nicolas Guillou undermine the principle of judicial independence and the mandate of the ICC.”
The US has long opposed what it considers excessive regulation of social media platforms in the EU, including the bloc’s 2022 Digital Services Act (DSA). Breton played a key role in designing the rulebook that imposes strict moderation requirements on tech companies such as X, Facebook, and Google. US officials have accused the EU of using the law to stifle free speech and censor American social media users.
The letter comes as Macron pushes for restrictions on children’s access to social media and has said he would discuss the issue directly with the US president.
Last week, the French president dismissed social media platforms’ arguments in favor of free speech as “pure bulls**t,” calling for full transparency in how algorithms shape online discourse.